Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1887-10-01

good as made clearly apparent"
4 Says DR.. G. H. Atkinson in reply
This is common sense and good
patriotism as well. 1t is the admission
which the social compact demands. Il
a man fire gun or pistol within
the city limits and endangers the
public, he must be prohibited The
first law of society is to protect its
members men, women and children,
every one and all alike. If the use of
opium poisons its victims, its common
sale must be prohibited, and put I'M
der the care of physicians, who are
responsible for their prescriptions.
Society commands its members to
abate every nuisance.
The Springfield Republican says to
the prohibitionist: .Demontrate that
the greatest good of the greatest num-
Der requires a prohibitory law against
any nuisance, then it will be as nat
urally and promptly enforced as any
other law which is the final expression
of public sentiment"
The major premise in this syIlogism.
that selfprotection is the highest law
of society, with its minor premise that
a business or custom which tends to
injure and ruin society, the results
must follow either to prohibit that
business or destroy society.
The task of the temperance man is to
demonstrate that the liquor traffic is
public injury. Being convinced of
it, the public must vote for prohibi-
ton. This is their only method. The
public do not license men to carry
arms or to sell poisons or to keep
stores Of infected clothing, but pro-
hibit such offenses.
The talk about a mans personal
right to do anything against the pub
lie welfare is mere bubble.
When wife begs saloon keeper
not to sell her husband liquor because
it destroys his power to support his
family and imperils her own life he
has no right to reject the plea and
sell the liquor for the sake of the
money.
When thousand wives make that
plea thousand saloon keepers have
no right to sell the liquor for the sake
of the money.
The family has the supreme right
of protection against this sale. A
thousand families have so much more
this highest right of protection Soci-
ETY. by as much as it is the larger
family of many ten thousands has
this supreme right
Prohibitionists may thank the daily
papers of our great cities for their
daily record of the crimes and casu-
alties nursed in and issuing from the
saloons, with the costs and miseries
entailed on families and the commun-
ity thereby. These facts are object
lessons, they make apparent beyond
question that the traffic in intoxica-
ting drinks is public injury.
The people are awaking to read.
hear, weigh and decide upon these
facts. They know that the public good
is the supreme law of society, the
chief factor of which law is the pro
lection of every citizen from injury
by any other citizen. The people are
becoming convinced that the whiskey
business is a public enemy, they know
that some people make money by it
directly and others indirectly, but
they know that the public and private
loss and suffering from it are immense
ly greater every day than all the cash
gains to individuals. They know that
in the annual profit and loss account
the blank sheet is many thousand fold
against whisky: that in the crime
account it is from 80 to IS per cent
against whiskey according to the
published police records: in death
rates whisky cuts the largest figure:
that in the insurance tables of the
actuary whisky runs up very high
cost of policy on property and life:
that the ratio of accidents on railroads
steam boats, fishing fleets and com
mercial ships and in all great enter
prises of building and construction,
whether local as in cities or villages
or ttanscontinental the pressure of
the whisky saloon is a danger which
threatens employer and employed
alike and often hurries on the most
terrible tragedies Men are sacrificed
without mercy. The new railroad
tracks across our continent have been
smeared with its bloody holocausts.
In every old city in our land the
blood of its murdered victims cries
from the ground, and from every new
city the echo of that cry goes up to
God in an agony of woe. The people
appeal to God for wisdom and for a
touch of divine courage and power to
put away this great evil forever.
Who can silence that cry or with
stand that power?
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The Second Annual Fair OF Bingham